We arranged a surprise birthday party for Ali....

....we even had Buzz, a fairy and a princess arrive....

...a party with yummy cupcakes.....

...and birthday cake with candles!!....

...everyone helping Ali blowing out the candles.....

Sounds like you all want to know what we are up to at the moment.....

Well we can not tell you everything, but to put Sherry's mind at rest we are NOT on Britains Got Talent as a Ribbon Twirling act!!!! You had us in fits of laughter over that Sherry.

Although Sherry is on the right lines.........we received a phone call last week from a TV production company (arrrgh TV).  They are looking for crafters that are passionate about what they do......Bev took the phone call "Oh yes you need to speak to Ali, she loves her ribbons".

So yesterday wearing my lucky ribbon shoes, I was interviewed and filmed......not for TV, but to see if I was suitable for the programme.  My 2 hour interview will be edited to 3 minutes and put forward to the producers.

Am I passionate about ribbons?
Do I love what I do?
Did I look good on camera? 
Were my instructions clear and easy to follow on making ribbon goodies?

To be honest, I have no idea.........they loved the blog and the way everyone was wishing me luck......they could not believe the amount of ribbon in our warehouse...............oh I do not know..........

I am up againest potters, weavers, ironsmiths....so not sure what I call myself.............so maybe Sherry was right and I am a Ribbon Twirler!!!

Here is someone that is passionate about our challenges - Dorothy.  I believe Dorothy has been in all of them - I am sure she will let us know. I love opening Dorothy's challenge parcels, they are always full to the brim with crafting goodies, and she has excelled herself with the seam binding challenge, not 2 creations but 7!!!

So what has Dorothy sent me.......

...Dorothy said this card was not really for the challenge, but thought the little girl reminded her of somebody on our team.  I think you are correct Dorothy it does look like our little Mollie.

With those seam binding flowers and seed bead details, I think it is a challenge goodie Dorothy.

Dorothy has been keeping this brooch cone, waiting for a special occasion - she thought this challenge was perfect and has filled it with a delightful arrangement of ribbon roses and feathers.  Looks like you did a bit of dyeing on one of the roses, very artisic Dorothy.

Hair bands are all the rage at the moment, perfect colour combo Dorothy.

Staying with the hair theme, Dorothy also sent in this beautiful butterfly hair grip.

Look at the detail.

Onto smellies....with this charming Lavender pomander.  We will keep this away from Tony, it will make him sneeze!!! Although he may prefer it to the smell that greeted him this morning.  The unit behind ours had a cleaning product spillage overnight and the smell had seeped through to all the other units.......the air was rather uplifting this morning.  Tony advised us not to breathe in the aromas although he said they did smell good!!! Naughty Tony.

Sorry back to the pomander...look a spiders web rose...we have all tried these? Yes?

A bead edged pot pourri pillow.

Trimed with the most amazing seam binding flowers.

And finally at the bottom of Dorothys box was this unique scarf.

I love the way you have picked out and enhanced the colours from the scarf Dorothy.

WOW! What a collection of wonderful Seam Binding goodies Dorothy - thank you so much for all you hard work, they have given me inspiration and I hope they will give our readers plenty as well.

We had a delivery today - ribbons of course, but not what you would normally expect, these are BIG!

Our new ribbon canvasses for the back walls of our exhibition stand. As you can see we have gone large!!!!!

See you at Exeter, or maybe Ally Pally or even Dublin, or how about Birmingham NEC........nahhh come and see us in Paris!!

We recieved a SOS call from Ali at the NEC, in a complete panic, what was wrong? maybe an accident, but NO, she had left her rucksack with her computer, camera and near enough the kitchen sink at home. How will she survive? no internet access, no photos to take, i don't think she will survive this disaster, she will be having the shakes by now, and all we could do was laugh, and we informed her that we shall now have our mobiles turned off, so she cannot keep an eye on us, hee hee, thats what sisters are all about.

Love

Rachie and Bev

xx

As promised the girls have given us their happy thoughts to comply with our blog award from Wilma yesterday.

I was a bit mean really and said that they could not pick their husbands, children or ribbon as they were MINE yesterday.

Bev was the first to reply - easy Ali

4. Sunshine - she hates the winter, but is all happy when the sun is shining.

5. Her car - Bev has a Beetle Convertible, so that's why she likes the sun to shine.

6. Internet Shopping - sad she knows, but since moving to Dorset she misses the shops that she used to visit in Reading and Internet shopping you can do while Syd and Sam are in bed!!

It took Rachie a little longer for her 3, claiming she had tons of work to do!!

7. Her Dogs - she has 2 golden retrievers Ollie and Chester aged 10 and 7

8. Being Smoke Free - Rachie is giving up smoking, but finding that she has to do more work as she is not nipping out for a quickie!!

9. Midsomer Murders - Did you know the New series starts tonight, Rachie must have told us ten trillion times today!!!

Number ten was down to Tony.

10. ME.

Blog award! I like blog awards this one is from Wilma, (I think all my blog awards are from Wilma!) Thank you.

The Crafty Team have to tell you 10 things that make them happy, well I can give you my top 3 it is easy. Ribbon, Ribbon and Ribbon - no that's naughty Ali!!

So here are my top 3.

1. Tony, without him there would be no tomorrow.

2. My two sisters Bev and Rachie and their wonderful broods.  I never wanted children in my life, now I just can not imagine it without these happy souls.

3. Ribbon - it just has to be in my top 3.  It makes me so happy. Way back in the begining I got told I could not make a living out of something I loved - how wrong were they!!!

As this is a team award I will get the others to post their happy thoughts tomorrow.

We have been working on restocking our exhibition stand this week, ready for the start of our French tour.  Poor Rachie has been glued to the silk unit all day, she left the warehouse cross eyed!!!  We (I) have brought so many new silk ribbons that she is struggling to fit them onto the stand.  Oooh! - we have also been having a play, and have 26 NEW shades of hand dyed silks in 4mm and 7mm.  (Sorry I just can not promise to get these on the website before we leave.) Do you remember "tie dying" at school, it's so much fun, but rather messey!!!!

Had some more challenge goodies arrive today so will try and post them tomorrow.

Ooooh I got mail this morning!!!!

Not that I was excited or anything like that, NO not me!

I have been trying to think up some new words to express these projects - but I have resorted back to WOW!  I must have said that rather loudly while opening the parcels, because all of a sudden I had everyone poking their heads into my office - then they all joined in!!!

Many thanks for all your emails and comments about my eye, it is much better and yes Tony is giving me a lot of TLC.

I am just rushing out of the office - bet you can't guess what I will be doing?

Yep - buying more ribbon!!!!  Before I leave, I wanted to share this email with you, from a happy customer that was in our inbox this morning.

This posting is for Marjorie, who wanted to see a pic of my new camera bag! How could I resist showing it off.  Everyone in the office seemed to be very relieved this morning that I had found one.... I have no idea why?!

I must show you the "Before" first.

Very BLACK, I had the choice of wearing it over my shoulder or on my belt.  Belts! in this weather - think not!!!!  So my quest for a girlie bag started, the plus point for the bag was my camera was well protected and fitted snugly inside. BUT I wanted a pink one or at least something that didn't shout geek.  To be honest it had become an obsession, I phoned and seached the world over.  Nope, not a thing.

So here is the "AFTER"

A small Kipling rucksack bag that is no larger than 30cm, has outside pockets that I can put things in and it is a scrummy shade of raspberry.  I did what Tony suggested and stripped the black camera bag down to the padding and sewed it into the main section of the rucksack.

My camera still fits snuggly inside.....

Camera strap folds up and fits ontop, zip it up and off I go!  I am not a photographer but definitely a point and click girl, my Canon does all the work and I have all the fun. Remember I went to the beach yesterday for a walk, well it was very windy and the boys were out having fun....  (rather pleased with this action shot!!)

Good luck with your rainbow bag Marjorie.

As promised here are a few of the photos we took at the Dorchester Carnvial on Saturday.  Thankfully the weather was very kind to us and stayed fine for the whole day.

OK..... Where do we start!  We waved our "Crafty Ribbons" wand and the pumpkin (truck) was turned into a carriage fit for a queen! See it in the procession photos below.

Losers of the Four Legged race who won the wooden spoons (same team as before!) and the winners of the race with their ribboned cup.

Sydney waiting for the procession to start, her little hands were filled with coins.  It's started I can hear the band.

Here is our float, covered in ribbons, bows and of course the Carnival Queen and her attendants.  All smiles and waving as the procession makes it's way around Dorchester.

There was just so much going on, over 50 floats and walking entries took part.  It was rather stressfull for the event crew at times, but they were able to spare a few moments for a photo call!

I hope you enjoyed the carnival with us, there were just so many photos, I only selected a few.  Although I have just heard that some of my photographs are going to be included in the special section in the local paper this week....... Will I get a "by line"?!